"I shall be happy to come, if Persis can manage it; but the ladies settle these matters," replied Ned, gayly; "and there's a little troublesome fellow, you know, who will have a voice, though he is not quite up to talking."
"Oh, you must bring the baby of course!" cried Nancy. "The days are so long, and the evenings so warm, that he can't now take any harm."
The invitation frankly given was frankly accepted, and Nancy returned into her cottage saying to herself, "How strangely things do change, and people change as strangely! It's not three months since I used to call Ned Franks that canting Jack with the wooden arm. I hated him,—I hated his ways,—I'd have done him a mischief if I could. And now I've lost an arm as well as himself,—I'm crippled far worse than he, and yet I believe that I'm better off and happier now than I was when I mocked and jeered at him. And, as for these pious ways of his, which made me so mad against him, I only wish I could follow them myself, and have the same lookout for another world as honest Ned Franks and his wife."
"Nancy Sands is a changed woman if ever there was one," mused the school-master, as he hurried along the dusty road after his boys, who had gone on in advance. "There never was a being who tried my patience more sorely than she did, with her waspish temper and her stinging tongue. Why, I remember biting my lip till it bled, to keep in the passionate retort to her very provoking taunts. Yes, the fire-ships were bearing down upon me then; and if I was enabled to 'sheer off' and avoid an explosion, it was because conscience stood at my helm, and my sails had been filled with prayer. Let no one make an excuse for passion by saying, 'It's in my nature;' the office of grace is to conquer nature, and tame the unruly spirit to the meekness and lowliness which become a Christian."
Ten minutes afterwards, Ned and his crew were busy as bees at their work, sawing and digging, carrying bricks and piling up wood, some of the boys singing cheerily as they labored, while the miller's little girl, seated on a stone, watched the work, and joined in the song with her sweet, childish voice.
Suddenly the singing ceased. Franks, who was working hard with his back towards the path which led up to the high road, did not at first notice the cause of the interruption, till he heard a loud, coarse, and too familiar voice, exclaim, "You boys there, what are you about?"
Ned Franks did not need the murmur of "Sir Lacy—Sir Lacy Barton," which ran through the groups around him, to make him aware who had appeared. He turned round quickly, and saw a young man not more than two-and-twenty years of age, but whose bloated features already showed the effects of the evil habits which must soon have caused his expulsion from the noble service which he disgraced, had not his succession to the baronetcy given him an excuse for quitting the navy of his own accord. As the baronet stood on the path leading down into the Hollow, between his fingers the lighted cigar which he had just removed from his lips, Ned gravely touched his cap out of respect to his position as lord of the manor. The moment that the eyes of the two men met, the school-master felt certain that Sir Lacy had recognized him, though the settled purplish-red on the baronet's cheek would scarcely admit of a deepened flush. He took no notice of Franks's salutation but by a haughty stare, and turned towards one of the boys who was standing with his foot resting on his spade.
"What are you all about?" repeated Sir Lacy.
"Please, sir," answered the boy, "we's be a-building up them old houses," and he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb.
"And what do such young fry as you get for your work?"